"When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty." (John Muir, Travels in Alaska)

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Monday, August 2, 2010

Clarifying

I got more response from my last post than I expected. In retrospect, that post is the type of crazy, exploratory, off-the-cuff, stream of consciousness writing that I usually reserve for my personal journal. If I had realized how many people read One Great Dewdrop, I would have put more effort toward clarity in my writing.

That's what follow-up posts are for. :-)

Perhaps most importantly, I'm not depressed, nor am I discouraged. Everything is exactly as it should be. Which means I'm doing great!

I left the United States with a vague intention to chase the freedom that I felt while I was in Peru, "to have cultural experiences," and "to see the world." Once I was out in this crazy, contradictory world, I learned that those reasons just aren't enough for me. I am hoping to have experiences that are more meaningful and purposeful than 1.5 years worth of vacation snapshots.

As a result of our lack of planning and purpose, Dave and I found ourselves in Jakarta without a clue why we were there or what we wanted to experience in Indonesia. So... we bought a Lonely Planet guidebook to give us an idea of what was out there and how to access it. *Gasp!* We ended up spending most of our time on Java firmly entrenched in the tourist trail: running from one photo opportunity to the next, visiting sites only because they were there and not because we had any real interest in exploring them, doing too much with not enough depth. Let me tell you: for me, this method of travel is misery!

Dave and I discussed points 2 and 3 around the time that I posted my last entry. We reiterated that we wanted to focus on activities that we were really excited to do and to seek out experiences that we can only have outside the United States. We reiterated that we are happier when we stay in one place for a while. We reiterated that we are comfortable with the fact that we're going to "miss" sites and activities. I don't want to do it all. I want to do well whatever I do.

And now we have a general idea of where we will be and what we will be doing for the next few months!
...August: peninsular Malaysia for hiking and trekking in highlands and jungles
...Early September: southern Thailand for a 10-day meditation retreat and a week rock climbing
...Late September: Cambodia to exploring Angkor Wat (it's crawling with tourists, but it's on my bucket list!)
...October and November and maybe part of December: Nepal for more hiking and trekking

Regarding the fate of this blog, yes, most likely I will write again at some point (hey, I'm writing right now!). Instead of reporting the useless, boring details of my days, I hope I will have something interesting, meaningful, or insightful to say.

In the meantime, I've got pictures to keep you entertained! You should become a "fan" of my picasaweb site or subscribe to its RSS feed, so you'll know when I add new photographs. I only post ~20% of the photos I take, but if that's still too many, I've started a "Greatest Hits" album of my favorites. Here's the RSS feed.